Hauling on the south face of washington column

Fell Overwrote:

. Another reason aside from the crowds why I don't think it's a great beginner wall.

for me the main reason SFWC is a bad Beginners route is because most people only haul 3 pitches.. how can you learn to haul and manage a clustered anchor with a bag on it if you only do it twice?(really just once at p2)

I suppose some of us think the perfect beginner BigWall is just super easy - and some of us think it should be appropriately challenging and build skills for the next step..

@fell over & @Glowering

What walls have you hauled that you thought had “easy” hauling? 

Kevin DeWeese wrote:

Bad hauling is when the bags will get stuck in such a way that the follower can't get to them without some chicanery. Sucky hauling is when the bags get stuck in such a way that the follower can easily get to them. 

South Face aint bad hauling, it's sucky hauling, and sucky hauling (as Marc points out) is good for learning. 

Sure, I don't disagree with that. Though it's not like 'bad' and 'sucky' are well defined terms!

It is good for learning to some extent. It's not ideal though. In a maths class you don't jump jump straight into calculus and then when people don't understand say "well it could be worse, at least you're not doing set theory". Or, closer to home, you don't teach someone to trad climb by sending them on an r rated route for their first time, better to get them to lead a route with loads of gear options.

Obviously the hauling up to dinner ledge is not the end of the world (though I do have a couple of friends who failed to make it to dinner ledge, presumably in some part due to the hauling), I just don't think it's great for the most frequently recommended beginner wall style route. If I designed a hypothetical wall style route for beginners it would have easier hauling to start off with and then probably some trickier higher up for the experience.

Fell Overwrote:

Sure, I don't disagree with that. Though it's not like 'bad' and 'sucky' are well defined terms!

It is good for learning to some extent. It's not ideal though. In a maths class you don't jump jump straight into calculus and then when people don't understand say "well it could be worse, at least you're not doing set theory". Or, closer to home, you don't teach someone to trad climb by sending them on an r rated route for their first time, better to get them to lead a route with loads of gear options.

Obviously the hauling up to dinner ledge is not the end of the world (though I do have a couple of friends who failed to make it to dinner ledge, presumably in some part due to the hauling), I just don't think it's great for the most frequently recommended beginner wall style route. If I designed a hypothetical wall style route for beginners it would have easier hauling to start off with and then probably some trickier higher up for the experience.

If you haul to the top then P11 is an adventure in hauling! 

Ricky Harlinewrote:

If you haul to the top then P11 is an adventure in hauling! 

I actually think the move here would be to leave the bag on South Face anchor 9 and then haul it straight to the final anchor on Skull Queen.. 

Its a clean haul and I think it would eliminate the fear of knocking tons of rocks down..

 I haven’t hauled to that anchor since the 90’s though so YMMV 

Quinn Hatfieldwrote:

for me the main reason SFWC is a bad Beginners route is because most people only haul 3 pitches.. how can you learn to haul and manage a clustered anchor with a bag on it if you only do it twice?(really just once at p2)

Yeah I agree with that. When I did SFWC as my first wall style route we decided to haul to the top for the experience (and then since we failed to find the way down (north dome gully?) we ended up abbing all the way down with the bags as well, so got some extra experience).

@fell over & @Glowering

What walls have you hauled that you thought had “easy” hauling? 

I think I've said on here before I've not got much big wall experience, so can't offer an extensive list. No hauling ever really feels easy (to me at least!) but for "easy" being defined as noticeably easier than the pitches up to dinner ledge.

Most of the Nose. 

The bottom half of Lurking Fear. Upper half has one horrible pitch, a couple of meh pitches, rest fairly easy.

SFWC above dinner ledge (though I don't recall it particularly well). Edit to add: not including the final pitch to the top, that one is worse than the first three.

Southern Man (we only had a light bag for this so could be wrong).

Hauling the fixed lines to heart and up to el cap spire via Salathe before bailing was very hard work because we had very heavy bags, they didn't get stuck much though, so probably counts as easyish.

I don’t know man… 

I hauled all of mine and Kevin’s kit to mammoth while JT just sat there watching me- I’d say the pitches to Heart are pretty easy going.. 

now the haul from Heart to Mammoth.. that’s a different story.. 

Quinn Hatfieldwrote:

I don’t know man… 

I hauled all of mine and Kevin’s kit to mammoth while JT just sat there watching me- I’d say the pitches to Heart are pretty easy going.. 

now the haul from Heart to Mammoth.. that’s a different story.. 

Yeah I think you're right on that, thinking back I didn't actually haul the Heart fixed lines, my partners did and said it was pretty trouble free. I hauled on most pitches of the Heart -> Alcove bit, which seemed to be mostly snag free, or just a few snags that were easy for the follower to fix (apart from when we lowered the bag straight out into the hollow flake... it did get a bit stuck then).

It's tricky to separate my memory of the effort involved vs the actual goodness/badness/suckiness of the terrain you're hauling over.

E.g. we hauled three peoples worth of stuff up to the Alcove, with enough water for 7 days, which makes me remember it being hard work. Whereas I've hauled the pitch from Heart to Mammoth with only one persons worth of stuff for 4/5 days and while the bag did snag a couple of times I was able to free it from the top and it doesn't stick out in my mind as being too bad.

Quinn Hatfieldwrote:

I don’t know man… 

I hauled all of mine and Kevin’s kit to mammoth while JT just sat there watching me- I’d say the pitches to Heart are pretty easy going.. 

now the haul from Heart to Mammoth.. that’s a different story.. 

I feel so attacked. This is the thanks I get for unstuckarooing the bags all the way up to Mammoth ?!

...

The south face was my first wall attempt some years ago. I remember being convinced my jugs were going to slide down the rope at any moment. It took me three hours to clean the Kor Roof and I kept careening over the lip into space as I cleaned via the "grip and rip" technique.

Lesson learned. I went back to Woodson and practiced the techniques and have had much more success since then, yet the opening pitches on south face are forever seared into my memory as the COOLEST, way heady, whole body trip of my climbing life.

I'm not sure what the "answers" are. Improvisation will always be needed to work through big wall shenanners. Last fall I found myself galloping the bags over to Hollow Flake, unusual perhaps, but effective. We were a team of three, and it just seemed easier for homie #2 to get off the anchor and zoom up the lead line, before releasing the bags.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ppvUUIv-hTc

...

P.S. Random tidbit: Never release the bags if the haul line is twisted up in the lead line! Don't ask me how I know! 

There’s an instruction manual? I thought the modern method is to post here and get yelled at by Kevin.

Christian Heschwrote:

There’s an instruction manual? I thought the modern method is to post here and get yelled at by Kevin.

Also Kevin, you know most of us wallers can't read. Cut us some slack, jeez.

I haven't done any walls with all easy hauling, but steep splitter pitches are way easier to manage. I think the SFWC is a great first wall. Just long and difficult enough to practice a variety of techniques. But not so long and challenging that it's overwhelming. Including the hauling.

Gloweringwrote:

I haven't done any walls with all easy hauling, but steep splitter pitches are way easier to manage.

Splitter only refers to cracks, not pitches, not weather, not anything else. 

You youngsters today changing all the terms.

And get off my lawn!

^^^^ There is a lot of instructional information, too much perhaps. Hard to sift I suppose. Self taught is ok too. That’s how my first trip up the Column was. I crowed a little to much afterwards. An older wall veteran reminded me to tone it down. He said the Column was not a big deal. Or something along those lines. 

To get back to the original question: yes, you'll likely be able to haul with a 1:1. If you need extra umph learn how to get your feet high and maximize your weight. 

Why not load up a bag with what you'd bring and haul it at your local crag? It'll give you a good experience of what it's like to pack, carry, prep, and haul a bag. Drag/carry it sideways over the ground with your partner. Dock it, undock it. I betcha there's one thing you do wrong that you can fix before getting on the Column.  Don't skimp on it; load it with what you're really bringing. 

Lots of good advice and things to know, thanks! 

And yep that is the plan Adam, going to go practice hauling soon! Being slowly working my way through the various aid skills like leading/following roofs and jugging, so just trying to get experience with a little bit of everything before actually getting on the wall.

Anahita Jwrote:

Lots of good advice and things to know, thanks! 

And yep that is the plan Adam, going to go practice hauling soon! Being slowly working my way through the various aid skills like leading/following roofs and jugging, so just trying to get experience with a little bit of everything before actually getting on the wall.

Hey I see you’re in LA- have you done the Stoney Point Bolt Ladder?
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106060538/old-aid-bolt-ladder

Pretty good practice- and you can haul it as well.. I showed up one day and a couple guys were hauling a Truck Tire up the face to practice..

Marc801 Cwrote:

Splitter only refers to cracks, not pitches, not weather, not anything else. 

You youngsters today changing all the terms.

And get off my lawn!

I meant a pitch with a steep splitter crack and nothing to get the bag hung up on like pitch 7 of SFWC. I'm gen X, not young anymore!

I did not practice hauling before I did SFWC as my first wall. I setup my hauling system at home so I was familiar with it. But practicing hauling sounds like a lot of work for no reason. 

Quinn Hatfieldwrote:

Hey I see you’re in LA- have you done the Stoney Point Bolt Ladder?
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106060538/old-aid-bolt-ladder

Pretty good practice- and you can haul it as well.. I showed up one day and a couple guys were hauling a Truck Tire up the face to practice..

Yeah! Done it a few times - some friends and I were trying to see who could get the fastest time haha. Also got on the Goof Proof Roof out in Jtree, which was a lot of fun.
Definitely planning to practice hauling there, though using a truck tire is pretty creative